The general opinion concerning aggro vs. stealth

[Succubus Dryad Of The Undying Comet]

in pt, the spies had to pay much more for making mistakes.

wich was better IMO

thats why i'm pointing it out ;D
in ct, mistakes are worse for the merc (quickcams etc) than for the spies -.-

So we just need much more passive defenses - more than PT had ;D

[Gawain]

not too much. don't forget that in pt there was no camnet and no vertical noise indicator. but the cheap part of aggro will be royally fucked with fewer lagg and fluid aiming, and we shouldn't fuck up stealth too much. but more passive defenses, and a larger chaff radius would help alot. you can still play stealth with more passive defenses, if u throw 3 chaff in every direction and 20 passive defenses are disabled, there are enough ways left to sneak (+fake alarms with snares). maybe it would be better if the spy needs a little bit more time to pull his gun out, so that shooting out defenses needs more time. on the other hand, i'd like to see selectable autoaim for the spies.

[Succubus Dryad Of The Undying Comet]

not too much. don't forget that in pt there was no camnet and no vertical noise indicator. but the cheap part of aggro will be royally fucked with fewer lagg and fluid aiming, and we shouldn't fuck up stealth too much. but more passive defenses, and a larger chaff radius would help alot. you can still play stealth with more passive defenses, if u throw 3 chaff in every direction and 20 passive defenses are disabled, there are enough ways left to sneak (+fake alarms with snares). maybe it would be better if the spy needs a little bit more time to pull his gun out, so that shooting out defenses needs more time. on the other hand, i'd like to see selectable autoaim for the spies.

Autoaim ok, but only on mercs  8)

[InvisibleMan999]

not too much. don't forget that in pt there was no camnet and no vertical noise indicator.

It had a vertical noise indicator. It just didn't have a vertical radar indicator. You'd just see a dot and not the  above/below thing you get for CT. You did get vertical showing on noise though.

you can still play stealth with more passive defenses, if u throw 3 chaff in every direction and 20 passive defenses are disabled, there are enough ways left to sneak (+fake alarms with snares). maybe it would be better if the spy needs a little bit more time to pull his gun out, so that shooting out defenses needs more time. on the other hand, i'd like to see selectable autoaim for the spies.

The main thing with passive defenses is that you need more darkness so you can at least shoot the stuff out from high above or far away. I don't really like the idea of throwing down a bunch of chaff because that just means that the merc turns on MT and sees where you run, unless you shock him that is. So you don't have a heck of a lot of stealth options there. I think there should be just enough passive defense so that you can't go running around like a fool without triggering a lockdown.

[Gawain]

cinema has lots of passive defenses and still plays very well...

[InvisibleMan999]

cinema has lots of passive defenses and still plays very well...

Yeah, cinema is kind of nice, mostly because of the multileveled setup and the darkness in the map.

[Spekkio]

I personally think the chaff radius is fine. The PT chaff was definitely overpowered. Wanna know why no one took flashbangs? Because chaff screwed up the merc's vision enough to compensate for it. If you got chaffed while sniping, you couldn't exit snipe mode, which is 10x worse than being taken out of snipe by a flashbang. If you were anywhere near that 9,000 ft radius sparkly stuff you couldn't see, reload, use a special vision, or snipe. Seriously, it was just bad.

The radius is fine now...if you wanna make it a TINY bit bigger ok, but it shouldn't approach PT's radius by any means. I'm all for chaff not working through walls. I think that's very cheap and definitely hinders the effectiveness of what would ordinarilly be a lot of trap ingenious trap placements. Oh, I can't shoot that far to hit the trap? Wait, I'll just throw it over here and let it work throught the wall!

You guys have to remember that the community was worse in PT than it is now. Mercs in PT, in retrospect, are sitting ducks.

As for Cinema, that was one of my favorite maps in PT and one of the most balanced. However, keep in mind that the disk objective is new; in PT you had to get 3/4 objectives. Not too hard though with SS+DJ.

As for snares, I'm not a fan of 15 because then that just leads to spam. I like the timer and amount on snares now, but I wouldn't mind having them fire more silently like in PT.

[Gawain]

the radius of the first blast disabling passive defenses etc should be like in pt, the radius of the longer lasting alu shavings like in pt. furthermore, it could flash a merc using emf ;D

snares are too weak in ct imo. it would be balanced if they would make noises more rarely or could be switched on/off, do some camo activation noises, and fire more silently.
in general, i wanna see all spy gadgets (besides cams) boosted. a longer range of the spy radar (maybe hbs and bullets slightely) would be good, too. (i was always of the opinion that the spies should retain the overlook). especially camo needs a boost...

[LiVe.To.Di3]

i wana see new spy eq with the ones we have now lol and idk i dont use snares maybe cause they are too weak like u said

[InvisibleMan999]

the radius of the first blast disabling passive defenses etc should be like in pt, the radius of the longer lasting alu shavings like in pt. furthermore, it could flash a merc using emf ;D

I always thought it'd be kinda nice if chaff acted like a flash versus MT. Kind of makes sense, with all the moving metal peices and stuff. Maybe it could overload it or something.

I don't really think we need any EMF nerfs, EMF is if anything the perfect vision, aside from ghosting, and shouldn't really be touched beyond removing that bug.

As far as gadgets go, I think HBS is just right. Spybullets should be made noiseless.

Alarm snares are pretty much right, maybe a little randomness could be added to their sounds, but other than that, they're okay.

Smoke and flash are fine.

Camo and maybe chaff are the only two that I think could use some kind of upgrade.

Cams obviously are overpowered, but based on current map design they're a necessity, nerf them too much, and the game becomes very one sided. The only way we could nerf cams into being balanced with the other gadgets is if we adopted a new map making paradigm that allowed for full stealth as a winning strategy. Otherwise, changing cams beyond like maybe a slight nerf to quick cam to prevent lag camming, would be a serious blow to the spy.

[Gawain]

it's already possible to win without cams, but it's much harder. it's a bad thing that one technique is so strong that it is crucial for most of the self-called "pros". i want to see more diversity in gameplay, atm it's more like tank spam in cnc3 1.04 XD
if a team beats me with cam spam and host aggro, i don't consider them high skilled, if anything simple-minded kiddies.

[Daybreak]

I take cams, but can't use them effectively. I basically use Chaff, smoke and HB. That's about it. Then again, it's probably why im not the greatest. Oh, and I can't double nade or tripple nade either, so I don't.

[Succubus Dryad Of The Undying Comet]

I can't double nade or tripple nade either, so I don't.

Me neither - i usually take HBS, Spy bullets, Smokes, and Chaffs

[Spekkio]

snares are too weak in ct imo. it would be balanced if they would make noises more rarely or could be switched on/off, do some camo activation noises, and fire more silently.

You have no idea what you're talking about. I love snares. The only thing I don't like about them is I have to use them either right before or right after I gave myself away because the firing noise is so loud. Even with this, you don't know how many times I've been able to escape by hiding RIGHT UNDER THE MERC'S NOSE because I fired a snare before hacking. Most exhilerating part of the game. Adding the stuff you say would make them OP. And 15 snares with silent fire is most certainly noobish because they allow spam. Spam = noob = bad.

I honestly don't know how you guys think chaff is UP. On the maps where I don't take snares, it's because I feel like I HAVE to replace it with chaff due to the triple-lazer thingies blocking doorways (or I'm with someone else who is taking them already).

[Gawain]

probably you're right. so just make them fire more silently.

regarding spam, i generally don't like the current gadget system that recompenses dying with new eq. any ideas about that?